About 20 glacier ski areas have opened in the Alps by the end of October, but there’s been so much early autumn snowfall coupled with low temperatures other areas that don’t have glaciers have already opened for their 2015-16 ski seasons too.
Kitzbűhel is the biggest name to do so, opening some of their higher lifts and runs for the first time this weekend of 24th/25th October.
Further north Ruka in Finnish Lapland, which tries to offer the world’s longest ski season for a non glacier resort, has opened one run already and will aim to stay open until next June now.
Credit – Ruka Ski Resort
And across the Atlantic Killington in Vermont won the battle to be the first to open in North America last Sunday 18th October, beating some of the world’s highest ski areas over in Colorado which had been snowmaking since early October and received some natural snowfall but had not been able to quite open.
The Alps and northern Europe have had up to three big snowfalls over the past two months, the last ending a few days ago after depositing up to two feet (60cm) of fresh snow and sparking several ‘powder alarms (for more than 20cm of snow in 24 hours) on already open glacier slopes.
Credit – Tignes
The new of Kitzbuhel’s early opening was broken in the UK by Crystal Ski Holidays who say that to celebrate they have come up with a special offer to celebrate the early snow: if you book your Crystal ski holiday by 2nd November to any of the European resorts, you qualify for a Buy-One-Get-One-Free (BOGOF) ski or snowboard equipment saving you up to £165.